A Coast Guardsman does a swimming drill at U.S. Coast Guard Training Center Yorktown in Virginia on Aug. 28, 2026. (Kaylyn Barnhart Batista/Stars and Stripes)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Tyler Tennant, a Navy veteran, now serves veterans as a county Veterans Services Officer in North Carolina. He is an Accredited Financial Counselor®.
Coast Guard families have some breathing room before the next federal funding deadline. Congress has passed a continuing resolution funding the government through Dec. 11, temporarily removing the uncertainty that surrounded the end of the fiscal year. After what Coast Guard members experienced during fiscal year 2026, however, that additional time is worth using to prepare for the possibility of another funding lapse.
The Coast Guard occupies an unusual position among the armed forces. While the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Space Force fall under the Department of Defense, the Coast Guard operates under the Department of Homeland Security during peacetime. That distinction became particularly important during fiscal year 2026, when Congress enacted full-year appropriations for DOD while funding for DHS remained unresolved.
The disagreement over DHS funding largely involved immigration enforcement and other issues far removed from the Coast Guard’s day-to-day missions. Nevertheless, because the Coast Guard is part of DHS, its service members, civilian employees and families were affected by the resulting funding lapse.
When DHS funding lapsed again on Feb. 14, the Coast Guard continued operating. Members still performed search and rescue, maritime safety and security, national defense and other excepted missions.
By March 25, Vice Commandant Adm. Thomas Allan told Congress that the Coast Guard was experiencing its third shutdown of the fiscal year. At that point, the service had lacked the funding necessary to operate and pay its people for 85 of the previous 176 days — nearly half of the fiscal year.
Active-duty Coast Guard members had continued receiving their pay. That was certainly welcome news for Coast Guard families, but Allan’s testimony provided an important reason not to assume the same outcome would continue indefinitely. Although military members had been paid up to that point, he told Congress that the service was operating under the “grim uncertainty of whether we can make the next payroll.”
Ultimately, Coast Guard members continued to be paid, and the funding lapse ended April 30. The important financial lesson for Coast Guard families is not that a missed paycheck is inevitable during the next funding dispute. It is that the successful outcome of the last one should not be treated as a household financial plan for the next one.
I spent 14 years in the Navy, where I served as a Command Financial Specialist, and later worked as a Personal Financial Counselor supporting service members and families at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, N.C. Today, I work with veterans as a county Veterans Services Officer in North Carolina and am an Accredited Financial Counselor. Those experiences have taught me that financial preparedness has to begin with the circumstances a family actually faces, not the circumstances we wish they faced.
Building a substantial emergency fund is good financial advice, but telling a family to maintain three or six months of expenses does little to help if they do not have that money today. A more useful starting point is determining exactly what resources are available now.
Coast Guard families can calculate how much cash they have available, identify which major bills fall around their normal paydays and determine how long they could continue meeting essential expenses if a paycheck were delayed. The Coast Guard’s own guidance during the 2026 lapse reminded members that obligations such as rent or mortgage payments, insurance, child care and child support continued regardless of the government’s ability to process payroll.
Families should also understand what resources may exist beyond their own savings.
During the 2026 shutdown, Coast Guard Mutual Assistance offered eligible members and employees an interest-free loan of up to one net paycheck, capped at $6,000. Assistance available during a future lapse could be different, but Coast Guard families should know how to contact CGMA and how to find current information about available assistance before a financial emergency occurs.
Financial institutions may provide another option. During government funding lapses, military-focused banks and credit unions have offered programs designed to help eligible customers whose federal or military direct deposits are interrupted.
Navy Federal Credit Union, for example, has offered a 0% APR loan based on an eligible member’s previous qualifying direct deposit, with no fees, interest or credit check. USAA has offered eligible members 0% interest loans based on their net pay, subject to its program requirements. During the 2026 lapse, the Coast Guard itself directed members toward information about CGMA and financial institutions including Navy Federal and USAA.
These programs can be valuable, but families should not assume that a program offered during one shutdown will necessarily have the same terms or even be available during the next one. Eligibility and enrollment requirements matter. That is another reason to learn how your financial institution handles government funding lapses before you need assistance.
The same preparation should extend to household creditors. A family concerned about making a mortgage, rent, auto, credit-card or other payment should communicate with the creditor before the payment is missed and ask what hardship options may be available. The Coast Guard gave similar advice during the 2026 lapse, encouraging members anticipating financial difficulty to communicate early with creditors.
Military financial counselors and other financial-readiness resources can also help families evaluate these choices. Not everyone needs the same solution. A household with several months of expenses in savings is in a very different position from a junior Coast Guard family with only enough cash to cover the next few weeks. The purpose of planning is to determine what options exist for the family you actually have, with the resources available to you today.
None of this requires predicting what Congress will do. In fact, trying to predict each funding fight misses the larger point. The federal fiscal year ends every Sept. 30, and continuing resolutions and delayed appropriations have become recurring features of the federal budget process. For Coast Guard households, that makes late summer or early fall a reasonable time for an annual financial checkup.
That checkup does not need to be complicated. Review emergency savings and upcoming bills. Determine which expenses would be affected first by an interruption in pay. Check the current policies of the financial institution receiving your military direct deposit. Refresh your knowledge of Coast Guard Mutual Assistance and other available resources. Know which creditors you would need to contact and where you could turn for financial counseling. Families with additional financial flexibility can use the time before the next funding deadline to add to their cash reserves.
If Congress completes appropriations on time, that preparation costs the family very little. If lawmakers pass another continuing resolution, families gain additional time to strengthen their position. If a future funding lapse does interrupt military pay, they will at least begin with a plan rather than having to construct one during an emergency.
Fiscal year 2026 demonstrated that Coast Guard members could continue receiving their pay even through an extraordinarily prolonged period of funding uncertainty. It also demonstrated the limits of assuming that outcome would continue indefinitely. At one point, the Coast Guard’s own vice commandant could not assure Congress that the service would be able to make its next payroll.
The lesson is not to panic before every federal funding deadline. It is to avoid confusing a successful outcome last time with a financial plan for next time.
